Lurid Charges Against ‘O’Reilly Factor’ Host
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The cable news host Bill O’Reilly managed a rare scoop yesterday. Even before a $60 million sex-harassment suit was filed against him, he filed an extortion suit yesterday against his accuser, the associate producer of his show on the Fox News Network.
The conservative star of “The O’Reilly Factor,” who is also the author of best-selling books, filed suit in State Supreme Court in Nassau County in anticipation of the sex-harassment suit by the producer, Andrea Mackris. That suit was filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan later in the day.
Ms. Mackris’s allegations include that Mr. O’Reilly made inappropriate comments and that, in at least two phone conversations, he engaged in telephone sex with an unwilling Ms. Mackris. At one point, her lawsuit alleges, he told her, “Next time it’s going to be in person.”
Ms. Mackris’s attorney, Benedict Morelli, claims to have “concrete and verifiable evidence.” There were reports that it consisted of tapes of phone calls, but the lawyer would neither confirm nor deny the existence of tapes.
People in the O’Reilly camp said that they are prepared for whatever might be on the tapes, which they believe exist, and that Mr. O’Reilly has nothing to hide.” He knows what he said and what he didn’t say,” Mr. O’Reilly’s lawyer, Arnold Green, said in a teleconference with reporters. “He doesn’t expect to be surprised.”
Mr. Green has demanded that the tapes be produced during a court hearing scheduled for Oct. 22 in Mineola.
The suit by Mr. O’Reilly and Fox News Network seeks unspecified damages, which a Fox press release says would be donated to charity. Named as defendants are Ms. Mackris, Mr. Morelli, and the law firm Benedict P. Morelli & Associates, which has a specialty in lawsuits alleging sexual harassment and discrimination.
The suit by Ms. Mackris, who is described as a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism and a Manhattan resident, names as defendants Mr. O’Reilly, News Corp., Fox News Channel, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., and Westwood One Inc.
Lawyers for Mr. O’Reilly and his employers portrayed the damages being sought by Ms. Mackris as an attempt to shake down Mr. O’Reilly and tarnish his reputation during election season, when his ratings are on the rise. Mr. Morelli is a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party.
Mr. O’Reilly lashed out against the harassment suit yesterday on his show.
“Just about every famous person I know has been threatened and worked over by somebody,” he said. “Fame makes you a target. … But in the end the justice system will take care of this situation. … I have to believe that, because I am simply not going to allow these people to extort me, or anyone else.”
Mr. Green said: “There is absolutely nothing in the nature of sexual harassment or otherwise that ever went on between this person and Mr. O’Reilly.”
According to the suit against her, Ms. Mackris, 33, worked for Mr. O’Reilly, 55, from May 2002 until January, when she left for a higher-paying job at CNN, a Fox rival. Mr. O’Reilly’s suit says she was unhappy at CNN, and – telling Mr. O’Reilly her boss there was fired for sexual harassment – asked for her old job back. She returned to her position at Fox News, at the increased salary of $93,200 a year, on July 6, the O’Reilly suit says. Mr. Green told reporters that she was still a paid employee at Fox as of yesterday, but that she cleared out her desk last week and told co-workers she wouldn’t be returning.
According to Mr. O’Reilly’s lawyer, the talk-show host and Ms. Mackris enjoyed a completely appropriate, cordial business relationship, which occasionally involved business dinners.
The harassment lawsuit contends that during one of these dinners alone together in early May 2002, after offering her a raise, Mr. O’Reilly made comments about Ms. Mackris’s personal life, including relationship advice to help her deal with her breakup with her fiance. The conversation began to take an uncomfortable turn, the suit says, when Mr. O’Reilly’s “eyes became glazed” and he commented that she should use her vibrator to “blow off steam.”
Ms. Mackris’s suit further says that Mr. O’Reilly proceeded to discuss how he engaged in phone sex with another woman from Fox, and to relate stories of his sexual escapades, including a massage in a cabana in Bali.
A year later, the lawsuit alleges, during a dinner with Ms. Mackris and a friend of hers, Mr. O’Reilly told stories about the loss of his virginity in a car at JFK airport, about a tryst with two Scandinavian flight attendants, and about his visit to a sex show in Thailand.
According to Mr. O’Reilly’s lawsuit, the $60 million is an exorbitant sum to demand, particularly for a claim “which consists solely of alleged inappropriate verbal comments.”
Ms. Mackris acknowledges, the extortion suit says, that she never reported the alleged harassment to Fox’s department of human resources, although she did receive a written copy of the company’s policy on sexual harassment; that he never touched her inappropriately, and that she never suffered “any adverse employment action such as a demotion or loss of pay” at Fox.
Ms. Mackris sat stone-faced with her lips pursed during a press conference with her lawyer yesterday and would not take questions.
“The most striking element that should be noted is that neither Fox nor Bill O’Reilly deny the specific behavior Ms. Mackris alleges in her complaint,” Mr. Morelli said in a press release.
Mr. O’Reilly’s camp, however, expressed confidence that he was guilty of no untoward behavior toward Ms. Mackris. His countersuit cites a September 7 e-mail she purportedly wrote to a friend who asked how she liked being back at Fox. “To answer your question, things are: wonderful, amazing, fun, creative, invigorating, secure, well-managed, challenging, interesting, fun and surrounded by really good, fun people. I’m home and I’ll never leave again,” the message said.
The harassment suit has a decidedly different tone. It says that although Ms. Mackris enjoyed her job at Fox News, she has been “subjected to the mercurial and unpredictable mood swings of her boss … a personality who can be paternal and engaging at one instant, tyrannical and menacing the next.”
Ms. Mackris’s suit says Mr. O’Reilly told her that should any woman ever turn him in for his inappropriate conduct, “I’ll make her pay so dearly that she’ll wish she’d never been born … and nobody would believe her, it’d be her word against mine.”
Mr. O’Reilly, who has been with Fox News since 1996, has a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University and a master’s in public administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He and his wife, Maureen, have a 5-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son. The family lives on Long Island.